Katherine Deere
Katherine Deere or Katy Deere. Appearance Katy has long, straight brown hair. She has a tall and graceless form. She has high cheekbones, a strong nose, and thin lips. Background Katy lived out on a little farm on the banks of the Allegheny, Armstrong County, way out on the frontier. With her father and mother. It was a hard life, but they they were alright. They had enough to eat and there was some other homesteads about, so they had church on Sundays and sometimes there was barn raisings and play-parties for the kids. Her father was strict, but he never laid a hand on her in anger. Her mother was a church woman, through and through. They said a blessing before every meal and prayers at night. She loved God, but Katy knew she loved her, too. Late in the summer before she went to Boston, when the corn was ready to be brought in, her uncle came by to help with it. He didn't have any land and he wasn't married and so he worked as a hired hand on the farms thereabouts. They were bringing the last of it into the corn crib when it started to rain, but her father didn't want to stop till it was all done and so he got all wet and then caught a chill and then a fever. Three days later he was dead, and people come from the farms around to his funeral. Everyone said it was Divine Providence that her uncle was there to watch out for her mother and her. It wasn’t three days after they put her father in the ground that her uncle came at her and he took me around the back of the shed and he threw her to the ground and had his way with her. She cried out but he still did her. And this continued every day after that. Her mother knew he was dirtying her, and it killed her. What with her husband dying and what her brother-in-law (assuming) was doing to Katy, she lost all her faith. She stopped believing and then she stopped eating. She ate nothing, even refused to drink any water, not even a drop. Katy tried to get her to eat or drink something. She begged her and begged her, but she wouldn't listen. She just stopped wanting to live and she died. It couldn't have been more than two weeks. Two days after her mother was put down and everybody left, he came at her again, but that time she was ready for him and I swung around and smashed him in the face, smashed him with a shovel as hard as she could hit him and then lit out. Left him there, on his hands and knees, groaning. She took to the road. Eating berries and roots and plants she knew and some rabbits. She just went east, because she knew there was nothing out to the west. Ended up in Boston. Went from big house to big house asking for work. Didn't find any, because of the way she spoke. They looked at her funny and closed their doors. She hadn't eaten for a week when she went to the door of the school and asked for work. She passed out on the doorstep from starvation. Peg pulled her in and gave her work. Story Mississippi Jack Katy found out that after taking the blow, he took an infection from the cut on the back of his head, and died. Katy and Lightfoot were married by Reverend Clawson. Katy's things were packed and thrown across the back of the packhorse and secured, along with some provisions we have raided from Crow Jane's stores. Her bow was slung from the pommel of the horse she would ride. Jacky gave each of them a pistol, with powder and ball, and a bag of coins, which was their final share of the spoils of the journey. They were going to go out West, to see what's there. Listening to Sacagawea that time, about her expedition, and the things out there, such as spouts of hot water that shoot a hundred feet in the air, streams full of fish, deer with horns that curl back over their heads, big, big mountains, herds of buffalo so vast you can't see across them, and another ocean over at the other edge. And come winter, they might go back to Katy’s farm and hole up there. He could hunt and trap, and in the spring they'd hire a man and get a crop in. Because she knew that she’dl never get Lightfoot to ever hold a hoe. And she knew she'd never be able to hold him on the farm when the weather warmed up, so she'd go with him again. Get someone else to tend the crop and bring it in. Or maybe they’d go down into Mexico to winter was over. Jacky had given them enough money to get by for a couple of winters. Skills Katy received a fine knife from Jacky. Jacky also bought some leather, an awl, and some waxed cord to rig a sheath similar to her’s to hid under her own sleeve. She used the knife to fashion more arrows for her newly made leather quiver.